Juul halts sales of mint-flavored e-cigarette pods amid federal scrutiny

Juul Labs said Thursday it will no longer sell its mint-flavored electronic cigarettes amid growing federal scrutiny over underage vaping and a wave of vaping-related deaths.

The company said its decision stemmed from findings in two surveys released in recent weeks. The 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey found nearly 1 million youths used e-cigarette products daily, with the majority of current users preferring Juul products. Separately, the Monitoring the Future survey, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week, found that mint-flavored e-cigarette pods were most popular among underage users.

“These results are unacceptable and that is why we must reset the vapor category in the U.S. and earn the trust of society by working cooperatively with regulators, Attorneys General, public health officials, and other stakeholders to combat underage use,” Juul Labs CEO K.C. Crosthwaite said in a statement. “We will support the upcoming FDA flavor policy and will follow the PMTA process.”

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The Trump administration is expected to announce a ban on all e-cigarette flavors except for tobacco and menthol in the coming days, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. Federal officials have accused Juul of marketing its flavored vaping products toward teenage and underage people.

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Juul said it will only sell Virginia tobacco, classic tobacco and menthol-flavored vaping pods in the U.S. market. The company said it would wait for FDA approval before selling any other varieties in the future.

The company said it has suspended all advertising in the U.S. and stopped distributing all flavored vaping pods in an effort to comply with regulators. The vaping market is set to reach $9 billion in sales in 2019, according to the Journal.

To date, the Centers for Disease Control has linked e-cigarette use to lung-related illnesses that resulted in at least 39 deaths in the U.S.

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